Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for connecting alternative communication means using Bluetooth, that is, a short-range communication technology, in a wireless communication system and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for providing the transmission and reception of audio streams using a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology.
Related Art
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that may wirelessly connect various types of devices and allows them to exchange data over short distances. To enable wireless communication between two devices using Bluetooth communication, a user has to perform the process of discovering Bluetooth devices to communicate with and making a connection request. As used herein, the term “device” refers to an appliance or equipment.
In this case, the user may discover a Bluetooth device according to a Bluetooth communication method intended to be used with the Bluetooth device using the Bluetooth device, and then perform a connection with the Bluetooth device.
The Bluetooth communication method may be divided into as a BR/EDR method and an LE method. The BR/EDR method may be called a Bluetooth Classic method. The Bluetooth Classic method includes a Bluetooth technology led from Bluetooth 1.0 and a Bluetooth technology using an enhanced data rate (EDR) supported by Bluetooth 2.0 or a subsequent version.
A BLE technology applied, starting from Bluetooth 4.0, may stably provide information of hundreds of kilobytes (KB) at low power consumption. Such a BLE technology allows devices to exchange information with each other using an attribute protocol. The BLE method may reduce energy consumption by reducing the overhead of a header and simplifying the operation.
Some of the Bluetooth devices do not have a display or a user interface. The complexity of a connection, management, control, and a disconnection between various Bluetooth devices and Bluetooth devices using similar technologies is increasing.
Bluetooth supports a high speed at a relatively low cost with relatively low power consumption. However, Bluetooth is appropriately used within a limited space because it has a maximum transmission distance of 100 m.